“Sunshine Week,” a national initiative aimed at educating the public on the importance of open meetings and public records and heralding the dangers of secrecy in agencies large and small, began March 10 and ends March 16.

The week-long celebration of public information was launched in 2005 by the American Society of News Editors (ASNE), with funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, to coincide with National Freedom of Information Day and “Father of the Constitution” James Madison’s birthday on March 16.

Newsrooms across the country will be recognizing the week with articles, editorials and features on the importance of open government, panel discussions and seminars on the value of being able to access government documents and other efforts aimed at highlighting the fact that “government works best when it operates in the open.”

Perhaps the most critical piece of ensuring that the American press is able to function properly, aside from the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, is the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which was passed in 1966 by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

The act provides journalists and the public with wide-ranging access to government documents on a national scale, but could still benefit from more transparency, according to ASNE General Counsel Kevin Goldberg.

“Since 9/11, there has been a real circling-of-the-wagons around anything dealing with national security,” Goldberg said. “I have a real problem with that.”

Goldberg said the public should have more widespread power to access information that deals with security since it has a vested interest in how it is being protected from perceived threats.

Additionally, Goldberg took exception with the fact that public funds are used to purchase body cameras for police and then citizens are prevented from viewing the footage.

“I think that is a mistake,” Goldberg said. “This is important information.”

Goldberg believes that, at the federal level, a strategic plan should be implemented to better use human and digital resources to distribute information in a timely and effective manner.

The Code of Alabama 1975, § 36-12-40, states that every Alabamian “has a right to inspect and take a copy of any public writing of this state, except as otherwise expressly provided by statute.”

However, there is no time limit denoted as to when these documents should be made available to the requester and the state charges $1 per page for public information.

“Our law is as simple as it can get,” said Alabama Press Association (APA) Executive Director Felicia Mason. “The vagueness of that law can certainly benefit people with the ability to litigate against open records.”

On a local level, public information will cost the citizens $1.25 per page for up to 20 pages and $1.75 for each page beyond that.

Mason noted that Alabama’s law allows for a “reasonable fee” but does not define the parameters of that cost.

“It should not be prohibitive for an average citizen to access open records,” Mason said.

Mason noted that the APA is currently working with advocacy groups in the state to push for a rewrite of the state’s open records law, which she believes will come up for a vote during this year’s legislative session.

For her part, Mason said the new law should establish an administrative avenue for addressing disputes over open record, define the timeline for responding to a request and the cost of copying documents.

“There should be a process,” Mason said. “People don’t really understand the importance of open records and open meetings until they are denied. Then, it’s a big deal.”

While Mason sees ways in which Alabama’s law could be improved, she stated that the state’s guidelines are far from the worst in the nation – Pennsylvania’s law states that all documents not explicitly defined as “open” are inaccessible to journalists and the public.

“For all the shortfalls of our law, it’s not the worst,” Mason said.

In conjunction with being able to access public information, the most valuable asset to communities across the country are local newspapers – in much the same way that some citizens cannot afford to access government documents, many don’t have the time to scour them for information and rely on their community newspaper to take on that role.

“Certainly, in Alabama, our newspapers and media groups are strong and well-respected,” Mason said. “There are few people that do the work that we do.”

According to the Pew Research Center, weekday circulation of daily newspapers in the U.S. declined by 8 percent in 2016, marking the 28th consecutive year of decline.

The drop in circulation includes a 10 percent decrease in weekday circulation and a 1 percent decline in Sunday circulation.

Total weekday circulation for papers across the country fell to 35 million – 38 million for Sunday runs – marking the lowest numbers since 1945.

There are a number of reasons for the decline in newspaper circulation – advertising revenue has fallen precipitously and the number of citizens getting their news online has increased steadily – but the consequences are most sharply felt in small communities.

A separate Pew Research Center study found that most citizens view their local newspaper as the most reliable source for local information such as upcoming events, municipal and county government, education and more.

“For all too many people, this is a press issue,” Goldberg said. But every day, something happens that is reported on with public records or could have been reported on more clearly with public records. The public is the one that’s going to affect change. If the public demands transparency, it will happen. If people are watching closely, it can be changed.”

Mason agrees, noting that the APA is interested in hearing from citizens around the state who have faced difficulty in accessing public documents.